Instal'10, Tramway, 2010.
The performance aimed to engage audience members in three distinct ways, simultaneously: emotionally, logically and physically.
One performer sang folk songs from various origins, including: Sardinia, Bulgaria, Greece, Gaelic Scotland. In contrast to the emotively intoned vocals of the singer an actor read text that was written as the document of the thinking research process for the performance itself. As another contrasting form of vocal communication, a third performer spoke in a understated way to each audience member, asking for a piece of the clothing or accessory to wear during the performance.
Underlying these three overlapping performances, was the actions of the venue front of house staff who performed the action of gathering dates of birth from each person who entered the performance space.
The performance re-performed actions from previous performances that have become artistically identified 'methods of engagement'. These actions are created anew by their application to the new performance situation, similar to the ways a song or a play can be re-performed while retaining autonomy as a 'work'.
Taken from the Instal'10 website - It's the creation of a social space and interaction, a kind of allegorical exchange more in line with what folk music is at it's heart than any homogenised appeal to authenticity or clichéd, stylistic and empty gestures…charming, persuasive but with a deep fidelity to folk.
See the INSTAL'10 website for further information.